| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a dagger,
issued through every pore. It was only a piece of clockwork, a
wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three times, an ingenious
contrivance by which the learned of that epoch were wont to be
awakened at the appointed hour to begin the labors of the day.
Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The
thing, composed of wood, and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was
more faithful in its service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo--
he, a man with that peculiar piece of human mechanism within him
that we call a heart.
Don Juan the sceptic shut the flask again in the secret drawer in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Till last, when round the house we hear
The evensong of birds,
One corner of blue heaven appear
In our clear well of words.
Leave, leave it then, muse of my heart!
Sans finish and sans frame,
Leave unadorned by needless art
The picture as it came.
XXVIII - TO AN ISLAND PRINCESS
SINCE long ago, a child at home,
I read and longed to rise and roam,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am the wits of former days,
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
LX
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: numerous and as idiotic as those of idlers who see a building left
half finished. For nine years, my young--" the Count hesitated to use
a word; then he waved his hand, exclaiming--"No, I will not say friend
--I hate everything that savors of sentiment.--Well, for nine years
past I have ceased to wonder that old men amuse themselves with
growing flowers and planting trees; the events of life have taught
them disbelief in all human affection; and I grew old within a few
days. I will no longer attach myself to any creature but to
unreasoning animals, or plants, or superficial things. I think more of
Taglioni's grace than of all human feeling. I abhor life and the world
in which I live alone. Nothing, nothing," he went on, in a tone that
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